Southeast

ORLANDO, Fla. — Two members of Florida’s congressional delegation Friday said more federal funding is on the way for high-speed rail for the state and other areas of the country.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday that it has reached a $1.95 million settlement with First Allied Securities Inc. for failing to supervise one of its former brokers who engaged in unauthorized, fraudulent trading in the accounts of two Florida municipalities.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida will need full funding to build a high-speed rail network from Tampa to Orlando, and eventually on to Miami, Nazih Haddad, chief operating officer for the state’s new Florida Rail Enterprise program, said yesterday.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Federal prosecutors in Alabama Wednesday recommended that former Jefferson County Commission president Larry Langford be sentenced to a minimum of 24 years and four months and a maximum of 30 years and five months in prison.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Florida Legislature will consider implementing the state’s first-ever intercept program designed to provide credit enhancement for municipal bonds.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The bond financing for Nashville’s proposed new convention center has been delayed pending action on a bill by the Legislature that, if passed, would grant an exception to Tennessee’s usury law regulating interest rates on municipal debt.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Georgia Department of Transportation on Friday released its solicitation for qualified firms to do the state’s first public-private partnership, a plan called the West by Northwest Project that is designed to bring needed traffic-congestion relief to metropolitan Atlanta.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A Jefferson County, Ala., circuit court judge Thursday ordered U.S. Bank to release $27.4 million so the county could make an arbitrage rebate payment on the 2004 fixed-rate school warrants that the county defaulted on earlier this month.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A myriad of options, including the use of pension bonds, are being considered in Atlanta, where spending on retirement benefits has soared to 20% of the city’s $523 million annual operating budget and the unfunded liability is now $1.5 billion.

Two of Virginia’s triple-A counties, Arlington and Fairfax, have released manager-proposed fiscal 2011 budgets that address revenue shortfalls and seek to maintain top-tier credit ratings.